I’m convinced if we removed one of the stories from the Bible, change the setting and the names of the characters, and had the average Bible reader read this story for the very first time, they would probably respond, “This is some crazy weird stuff!” Take a look at this story:
The daimons besought Apollonius of Tyana not to send them out of the country [Athens]. Now there was nigh unto the mountains a great pack of hyenas. And all the daimons besought him, saying, Send us into the hyenas, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Apollonius gave them leave. And the daimons went out, and entered into the hyenas: and the pack of hyenas ran violently off a cliff headlong and died.
The story above is sort of a fictitious story that by now you may recognize as derived from the story of Jesus casting out a demon from a man and the spirits entering a herd of swine who then in return ran off a cliff and drowned in the sea (Mark 5:8-13). All I did was change the names and location. So, for a moment, imagine someone, even a Christian, never hearing Mark’s story of the swine and reading the above story of Apollonius of Tyana and the hyenas for the first time. They might think to themselves, this is pretty bogus, or even comical!
One might reply by saying that Jesus was unique and he was the only one who could do miracles. Well, this is not quite accurate, even the Bible talks about other healers, miracle workers, and exorcists. Actually, historians know there were literally hundreds of healers and exorcists traipsing around before and after and at the same time as Jesus. One of them was Apollonius of Tyana who I mentioned above. He was a real man who lived around the same time as Jesus, and who also had followers. Here is an excerpt where Apollonius of Tyana is casting out a demon from a young boy:
Now when Apollonios gazed on him, the Eidolon (demon) in him began to utter cries of fear and rage, such as one hears from people who are being branded or wracked; and the Eidolon (demon) swore that he would leave the young man alone and never take possession of any man again…the young man rubbed his eyes as if he had just woke up, and he looked towards the rays of the sun, and won the consideration of all who now had turned their attention to him; for he no longer showed himself licentious, nor did he stare madly about, but he had returned to his own self… (Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 4. 20 ff).
Here is a question and thought: why do we choose to believe one story and not another just because it is or is not in the Bible? Or maybe these stories, whether in the Bible or not, are the literary strategies of these authors to catch the attention of their readers, like in a movie or a book? We will talk about literary strategies another time.
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